Kent State made Sean Lewis the FBS’s youngest head coach on Dec. 21, hiring the 31-year-old from Syracuse, where he had served as Dino Babers’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach the past two seasons. It has been a rapid rise, and one that was not exactly planned, but the Chicago native is ready to rebuild a program that has posted one winning season in the past 11 campaigns, as the Golden Flashes went 11-3 under Darrell Hazell in 2012.

Lewis returns to the Mid-American Conference, where he and Babers helped Bowling Green to back-to-back MAC East titles, and a league title in 2015. He played for Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, where current head coach Paul Chryst was his position coach. Lewis credits Chryst as one of the biggest reasons he got into coaching.

Lewis and his family will be in the same place soon, too, as they get set to close on a house this week, reuniting Sean with his wife Sarah and son Rory, who will turn 2 next month.

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